Tag Archives: Economics

Interesting article and very scary at the same time. Can America survive this and if so, what will our country look like in 5 -10 years? Will more women be working and the men become stay-at-home manwives? Now there is a thought.

Paula’s heart-throb opines in this NYTimes Editorial that the 10 year period from 1999 to 2009 should be labeled the “Big Zero” – as in zero net gain in any economic sense. Job Growth = zero; housing value gains = zero; economic gains for the typical family = zero; read the article there are more zeros to behold.

Krugman is distressed by our nation’s inability to learn from its recent mistakes. He pointedly chides Republicans, whose policies of tax cuts and deregulation fostered in this economic mess, now are loudly recommending tax cuts and deregulation.

Paul stops short of saying it, but let me help him, Libertarian stupidity is beyond help – let’s drown them all in Grover Norquist’s bathtub – he probably wouldn’t even notice…

I really don’t want to drown anyone, but I thought the allegory was too good to pass up.

I swear, Palin is posting under a nickname on the WEBlog. If one reads her rants about the “Climate-gate Emails” – one can’t help but wonder if several conservative posters at the WEBlog are her ghost writers.

I know conservatives complain that global climate change folk are frightened “Henny Pennys”. I think what is much more frightening is that Palin has been given a national stage to spew her stupidity. Exhibit One: This WashPo Editoral.

Just to clarify, I am not here to stifle the free speech rights of one Sarah Palin, rather I am here to encourage their expression. Despite her best intentions, Palin has done more for the adoption of informed policies than any Republican in a long, long time.

“Why did I sign on to this proposal, if i don’t understand what it does?” George W. Bush is quoted by Matt Latimer in his new tell-all book, Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor. Allegedly, Bush asked this question when it almost dawned on him what the bank bail out proposal was supposed to do.

Bush’s stupidity, sounds more astounding than even I had ever imagined. See a brief review here. Thanks to Lilac for this post idea.

Iggy Donnelly and Son practicing "Here comes the Sun" by Geo. Harrison

On Monday morning, NPR broadcast a story about how the U.S. Economy is drifting toward European styled socialism. NPR interviewed a German couple, the wife/mom from New York had married a German man and the couple now live in Germany. The couple have a five month old child for whom the family receives from the German governmenttwo-thirds of the mom’s salary for one year after the child’s birth. Like the U.S., Germany has an aging population, and thus they are interested in incentifizing the birth of babies. The tax rate reflects the generous German program – the couple pay about half of their income in taxes. I had an email friend who lived in Germany who worked for a community college that offered all types of education absolutely free. This program sounded like a for real “free university”.

Revealing my potential biases, I work in, and have for several years, a health care field that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Government. Even though he had some distracters ( See: Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man), I believe that FDR was able to leverage the power of the U.S. Government to reverse a crushing economic depression in the 1930’s. I think there were academic and artistic advances in the 1930’s that would have been impossible without the New Deal.

Regarding the points that he U.S. Economy may be moving toward European socialism, a bigger safety net sounds good to me. So does greater regulation that protects the public from the reckless capitalism that hurt people who did not contribute to the problem, nor had any way of benefiting from the risks. But as we have seen from the very end of the Bush administration, these same marginalized people had much to lose from the reckless speculating of the wealthy.

It seems like there are two camps on the question posed by the title of this thread. Paul Krugman holding the first position that the stimulus was too small (we will not go there, for those of you thinking innuendo), and the second camp, mainly composed of conservatives, who complain that the results of the stimulus has not helped that much and is producing crushing debt. It would seem to me that evidence for both positions could be found.

I have never taken an economics class, but I am impressed by the fuzziness of the discipline. I am interested in psychology, so I am reasonably tolerant of methodological uncertainty. Is there such a thing as experimental economics?

If we look at history, one interpretation is that the stimulus programs of FDR in the 1930’s were successful, in at least making a bad situation less worse. Does that sound familiar, or not?

Amity Shlaes suggests that the FDR administration’s hostility toward wealthy people and the ineffectiveness of government interventions actually prolonged the great depression. In fairness RE: this source, Shlaes is a conservative Wall Street Journal editorial commentator.

I’m trying not to be snarky here, but I once was (a few years ago before bush the lesser!) a conservative and today I feel betrayed, so my disappointment and (sometimes) anger might come out snarky.

I was reading the latest installment about the Young Republicans election of their new chairman written by John Avlon, “Bullying Behind GOP “Racist” Win, and he states, “The Young Republicans faced a stark choice at their convention in Indianapolis yesterday as they chose their next leader: a center-right twentysomething interested in greater outreach, or a self-described “true conservative” who is almost 40 and spent last week dealing with Daily Beast reports about her beliefs, which are, at best, often hateful, and at worst, downright racist. The delegates, in a vote of 470 – 415, chose the latter.”

Calling the newly elected chairman a “true conservative,” made me wonder anew what that title means.I suspect it has a different meaning for different people and that just might be one of the biggest challenges facing The Republican Party today! Continue reading →